The Timelessness of the First Hamilton Cabinet Battle
This was originally published in the OnStage Blog Newsletter on 6/10/2022
Greg Ehrhardt, OnStage Blog Editorial Staff
Hamilton, as we have written about endlessly of the blog, is a brilliant musical (this just in!). Although it is written about our nation’s founding, now over 250 years ago, the way it sings about perseverance, love, and loss, is truly timeless.
The story is ostensibly about Alexander Hamilton, (though it might be really about Eliza), but its overall a story about overcoming obstacles, both external and internal, to achieve your dreams, and sometimes, achieve a legacy.
Sometimes, achieving your dreams through a democratic government involves overcoming the obstacle of persuading people who don’t agree with you; in a democracy, the people who don’t agree with you have every right to disagree and try to make their own case.
This is beautifully represented with the two cabinet battles in Hamilton.
Before we get to the timelessness aspect of it, I must join the chorus in throwing bouquets at the substance of the rap battle. It’s a rap about establishing a national bank, a very esoteric political argument that exactly 20 people on C-SPAN would care about today if publicly debated, and yet, Hamilton makes it captivating with the rhyming and the attitude behind it.
(Thought Experiment: would our government be better or worse if debates around the government assuming college debts was done with rap battles instead of the long winded speeches and talking points we currently get? Wouldn’t we capture the public’s attention more if Chuck Grassley and Elizabeth Warren took to the halls of Congress exchanging rhymes and petty insults over the economics of student loan forgiveness? (checks their age and ethnicity in Wikipedia)……oh yeah, never mind. Moving right along!!)
But for me, the timelessness of the 1st cabinet battle is at the end, when Hamilton complains to Washington that he will never get his plan through Congress. Washington reminds Hamilton that when it comes to Government, you can’t simply have a plan, you must persuade.
Let’s read the lyrics verbatim (bold emphasis mine):
“So we let Congress get held hostage by the South?
You need the votes
No, we need bold strokes, we need this plan (no, you need to convince more folks)
James Madison won't talk to me, that's a nonstarter
Ah, winning was easy, young man, governing's harder
They're being intransigent
You have to find a compromise
But they don't have a plan, they just hate mine (convince them otherwise)
And what happens if I don't get congressional approval?
I imagine they'll call for your removal
Sir
Figure it out, Alexander”
Sounds relevant to our state of affairs, no?
Today, we’ve seen candidates on both sides of the aisle that love to campaign, but weren’t interested in the messiness of governing. Campaigning puts you in front of people who like you. Governing, in a democracy, puts you with people who don’t like you.
Of course, governing is supposed to be a thankless task; that’s why it is called a civil service. In a democracy, you can’t just have a plan and expect to implement it with no disagreements. You have to persuade OR, as George Washington says in the 1st cabinet battle, find a compromise.
It is easy to think we have a uniquely obstructive Congress these days, but the truth is not just that Congress has always obstructed (and these obstructions have almost always been overcome), but that Congress was designed to be obstructive so it would not be easy to impugn on the citizen’s freedom.
George Washington calls out Hamilton for whining about the opposition’s intransigence. Washington doesn’t overtly say this, but I imagine he would have paraphrased a Sean Connery’s great line from the movie “The Rock”, which we will edit to make it suitable for a family newsletter:
“Losers always whine about their best. Winners go home and hug the prom queen” (click here for the R rated version)
We see in Hamilton (and of course 1776) that the tactic of the opposition not having its own plan other than to obstruct is hundreds of years old. But it can be overcome. Hamilton did get the national bank, and the opposition got the national capital in their preferred region.
Compromise got Hamilton what he wanted, overcoming the obstacles to achieve his goals.
Great music entertains, delights, and makes you think. In this case, the 1st cabinet battle also reminds us that our current struggles are not unique. That should be a consolation, because we’ve made it this far.
Perhaps history can guide us to a solution, just like it did with Alexander Hamilton and millions of people before us.
Just a thought, or at least, a musical battle.